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The U.S. plans on filling Eastern Europe with thousands of troops along with vehicles and weapons to equip an armored combat brigade. That will require a special budget request of $3.4 billion for next year. Uncle Sam may be bankrupt, but nothing is too expensive for our pampered European allies, who enjoy greater wealth while spending far less on defense.

The U.S. plans on stationing up to 5,000 troops along with the prepositioned equipment, on top of 65,000 already deployed in Europe. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter opined: “We’re going to have to help countries to harden themselves against Russian influence … and also mount—as we did in decades past—staunch defense of our NATO allies.” The Pentagon calls this the “European Reassurance Initiative.”

An unnamed administration official told the New York Times, that the step “fulfills promises we’ve made to NATO” and “also shows our commitment and resolve to individual countries to which we will be putting a persistent rotational presence of forces to demonstrate our resolve in their, and our, collective defense.” Moreover, said another anonymous aide, the administration sought to respond “in a more programmatic and consistent way” to the threat environment. “This is a longer-term response to a changed security environment in Europe. This reflects a new situation, where Russia has become a more difficult actor.”

However, the basic question remains unanswered: Why is the U.S. defending Europe? Doing so made sense at one moment in time: when the war-ravaged states of Western Europe were vulnerable to coercion if not aggression by the triumphant Red Army after it (more than the Western allies) defeated Nazi Germany. However, the need for America to play an overwhelming role disappeared as the continent recovered. With the end of the Cold War any theoretical justification for U.S. defense hegemony disappeared. The Soviet Union collapsed, the Warsaw Pact dissolved, the Eastern European nations raced westward. There was no more “there, there” to the threat of aggression from the east.

Today NATO involves collective defense, but for “their,” not “our,” defense. Although the Europeans sometimes join America in “out of area” activities, for which no alliance is necessary, they have never come to, and are unlikely to ever come to, America’s actual defense. Applying Article 5 after 9/11 was a nice act of solidarity, but European support was never necessary to strike al-Qaeda and oust the Taliban. The 14-plus year attempt to remake Afghanistan had nothing to do with any Western nation’s defense. Libya was Europe’s war fought with U.S. backing. Turmoil elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East also is a far greater problem for the continent.

Even so, there is no serious military threat to Europe. Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi made a deal with the U.S. and Europe. The Taliban had limited ambitions. The Islamic State has limited capabilities. Russia may be “a more difficult actor,” but it is not a suicidal aggressor. Moscow today is not the Moscow of the Soviet Union. It is much more like the Moscow (actually, St. Petersburg, then the capital) of the Russian Empire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a state residence outside Moscow, on February 3, 2016. (SERGEI KARPUKHIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Vladimir Putin’s Russia cares about border security. It wants to be respected and have its interests protected. It doesn’t act precipitously, but it does act. And it will take advantage of circumstances. Moscow’s treatment of Ukraine is instructive. Russia did little when Ukraine was ruled by the hostile, incompetent Viktor Yushchenko. The West supported the Orange Revolution which helped bring him to power and had high hopes for his presidency, which ended when he received less than 6% of the vote in his reelection bid. Russia acted after the West supported the ouster of a friendly president, who had won a relatively free election, along with a trade agreement to reorient Ukraine toward Europe.